a lot of smaller businesses are wising up to the trend that concealed carriers stop armed criminals. This is also great because small businesses are more acutely aware of their need to be inclusive of all their shoppers — more particularly those who may come to their defense if the need arises.

Tips On Talking To “Gun Free” Business Owners

Your best bet for making any headway in dismantling a “gun free zone” is through logical, calm discussion with an actual manager or owner from the business itself. In almost all states, a business has the right to designate its premises as “gun free” — because private property is an inherent right observed by the state. States like Texas, though, require businesses that prohibit open and concealed carry to display those notifications in a uniform and clearly visible way (also called 30.06 signage).

If the business has markings that indicate it would like you not to carry inside that business, for the purposes of this discussion — concede to that request. The most counter-productive argument to have is one starting on the wrong foot.

Concealed Carrier: “I’d like to speak to you about your weapons policy. Did you know that criminals don’t acknowledge ‘gun-free’ signs?”

The best way to understand a business owner’s decision to enforce a “gun-free zone” is to ask why he feels he needs one in the first place. If the reason is because he doesn’t want his business to be robbed, kindly point out that concealed carriers are generally law-abiding individuals interested in simply going about their business — not robbing the place. Armed criminals, however, don’t need to legally obtain their guns or their permit to carry concealed.

If the reason is because the business uses high-powered electromagnets with variable voltage and current, you’re probably in Doctor Frankenstein’s castle and should leave before his monster gets loose.

Step 3: Discuss The Benefits Of Added Business

Letting concealed carriers come and go as they please through a business improves foot traffic and increases the likelihood of business. If a concealed carrier has a choice between two shoe shops, for example, he will generally choose the one which allows him to go inside with his gun.

For small-to-medium business owners, they have to compete with a growing world of Amazon, eBay, and a slew of other online retailers. Even service-related professions are increasingly becoming Uber-ized. So, increasing a loyal base of customers is always in the business owner’s interest. Allowing concealed carry is a great first step.

Added bonus: Nobody has to know there are concealed carriers inside the business. Simply removing the ridiculous signage is enough.

Step 4: Invite The Business Owner To A Gun Range

The best way to get over an irrational fear of guns is to get to use one in a responsible setting. Going out to a beautiful outdoor gun range is the perfect way to get acquainted with firearms. This is an opportunity to learn that firearms are just tools — and in the hands of the ‘good guys’, they can be used to save lives.

In conclusion, if you speak to a business owner who has “no gun” signs on his or her doors, you’re creating the opportunity to open up a business to a new class of customers as well as promote the culture. Responsible concealed carriers are a boon to any business.

comments

I haven’t seen a “no guns” sign in MA, but if I did, I’d leave and never return, or I’d ignore the sign — for example, if I drove ten miles to the store unaware of its new policy, I would not simply leave or lock the gun in my car where it could be stolen.

But under no circumstances would I have a discussion with the owner or manager. Nothing good can ever come from engaging with a hoplophobe. Hoplophobia is a mental illness and talking will never cure it.

I don’t agree. There was a local grocery store that had a “No Guns” sign. I spoke to the manager (politely) and a few months later, it was gone.

I’m not pretending that my conversation was the only reason that the sign was gone, but if a few dozen other people also said something, my conversation was definitely taken into consideration and listened to.

I wouldn’t agree, either. A given disease may present with different degrees of severity across the afflicted. Likewise, different diseases may exhibit the same symptoms. Just because someone has a no guns sign, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re hardcore about it, or even that they’re actually anti-gun at all.

It could be the owner’s mother-in-law asked him to post it, the one and only time she showed up at the shop. Discuss it rationally and he might pull it down today. At some strip mall restaurant, it might just be left over from the previous tenant of the space and the current occupant never really thought about it. Ask her about it, representing the carrying community as a decent, peaceful fellow, and she might take it down.

Even if the owner is anti and even if he did post it, well, business is business. Most Indians I know (and I live in a city with an officially-designated “Ghandi District”), for example are Hindi and vegetarians. Yet, walk into any Houston area Quiznos sandwich shop today, of which 99% appear to be Indian owned and operated, and you can order a double meat steak and cheese footlong while Christmas music plays overhead. Business is business.

I agree that in most cases it is hard to change minds. Most small business owners are independent thinkers, pro-gun, however, in this PC world, these same people are fearful of creating waves with their customers that can negatively impact their bottomline. Posting GUN FREE/ROB US signs is infers that you are liberal person.

True story: A small Business owner of a local Gym for kids said, “Truthfully, we don’t enforce it. We just don’t want a repeat of the experience we had last year when a customer walked with a rather large revolver on his waist. Some of the little girls screamed GUN GUN.” I completely understood. I have heard 5-8 year old girls screaming. They are more frightening than Kodiak running towards you in a dense woods. That man was an off duty sheriff who had a beard, long hair and wore a hoodie that day.

Sometimes gun lovers can do things that hurt our own cause. Concealed is a good policy for many reasons.

Or….go on Yelp or Google and post a review that the product/service is great, but that darn no guns policy is a deal breaker for you. You want to feed your family healthy, nutritious, delicious meals when you take them out, but you also must care for their safetycand security, as well. This hypothetical restaurant is almost there, but misses the mark with its no guns policy. Invite the ownership to post a response and to reconsider the policy, now that it’s been brought to their attention.

Companies spend huge amounts of money to acquire a new customer, but considerably less to retain an existing one. Remind them of the economics, without threatening a boycott.

“Letting concealed carriers come and go as they please through a business improves foot traffic and increases the likelihood of business.”

Likelihood of business – yeah. Point out that a legal, law-abiding concealed carrier in their shop is very likely to 1) Buy something and leave money in their cash register, and 2) protect them and their customers in the event that: A non-law-abiding bad guy(s) enters their store, threatens the lives of their staff and patrons, and TAKES THE MONEY OUT OF THEIR CASH REGISTERS.

Business insurance might cover the loss of cash, it will not bring back shot staff or patrons.

In a previous article, we discussed several large chains that had standing “no weapons” policies in place for a majority of their nationwide venues. This is very annoying for the responsible concealed carrier who tries to stay within the laws.

Uhh…policy is not law. Good concealed carriers are still within the law by ignoring the policy.

But hey, lets encourage our own to be less informed and blindly follow “policy” becasue manners are more important than freedom.

Oh, and ditto on ignoring the “open letter” type policy stuff. I’m even known by name at my local Starbucks where they alway have my favorite latte drink ready by the time I get there. Concealed is concealed, and thus we are all getting along fine. It’ll be more interesting after January when open carry is legal, we’ll see what happens then!

Hi, we have differing views about firearms ownership and you most likely fear people like me. However, in an effort to change your mind I cordially invite you to do that thing you probably hate with me, somebody you likely fear, outside of your busy schedule of running your own business. Does that sound like fun to you new friend?

Invite them to a range after you know them for a while, so you don’t seem crazy.

1. DON’T be wearing a gun when you know you are going to discuss guns on their premisses. They are already against guns for some reason, they just might interpret your wearing a gun as a threat.
remember THEY are the ones who are paranoid.

2. If they have a No-guns sign, just tell the clerk or person who serves you to tell the management that that you would prefer to have the sign taken down.
It is a hassle to have to go back to my car to put my gun away.

Neither Beretta nor Taurus. It’s a Glock. All scary black guns are Glocks, just like I learned from watching my favorite TeeeVeee shows, and also what the omniscient, infallible Democratic Party has told me.

Most large chains and malls post for reasons other than being anti-gun. They post because of liability and tort law. Nobody is going to hold up a Macy’s store so deterrence isn’t really an issue. What concerns them is liability from a crazy, collateral from an armed citizen or an ND. They are being perfectly rational. Here in Wisconsin they make prohibitionists liable for the crazies if the post the big sign. So in most cases where there is a no guns policy the signs are tiny and aren’t legal ally binding without someone first asking you to leave. You can thank Scott Walker for this.

My favorite local shop in Vegas – The Range 702 – has signs that read “All sidearms must be holstered, unless the need to use them arises.” No mention of being unloaded unless they are uncased and not holstered.

“If the reason is because the business uses high-powered electromagnets with variable voltage and current, you’re probably in Doctor Frankenstein’s castle and should leave before his monster gets loose.”

Or you could be in a hospital. You do not want to have a firearm in the same room as an MRI machine. Wouldn’t be good for anybody.

I usually go in and let the manager know that I respect his right to forbid firearms. I then tell them that I wont shop there since I can legally carry a firearm elsewhere. Evidently enough folks did that with Carquest in FL that they peeled the signs off the door.

Usually you’ll find they tell you it is a company policy which means their insurance company probably dictate the addition. The are also the companies run by hoplophobes that try to move their political agenda forward.

In my travels in the South – I notice that Tennessee seems to have the most restaurants with the signage. I believe they state it is a crime to step foot inside. In FL, they can ask you to leave and if you don’t it’s a crime.

Yes, it would be a crime to step inside any posted building in Tennessee, and even a little 1-inch square gunbuster symbol is a legal sign. I call it hiding behind the skirts of the government. Many of the national chains that post in Tennessee don’t in Georgia because it does not have the force of the government behind it.

With movie ticket sales at a 20-year low, it seems like there are apparently quite a lot of us who don’t find the experience all that enticing… I stopped going to movie theaters long before I started worrying about businesses having “no guns” policies.

I remember movie theatres.
Someone behind me, open-mouth chewing popcorn in my ear. Kids in front of me having a conversation. A lady to my left, on her phone. To my right, a mother and young child who visited the restroom every twenty minutes.

If it’s a store I once shopped at before the signage appeared I’ll send a polite letter to the store or corporate office telling them I won’t shop there anymore and why.
A group of local auto parts stores that are part of a national chain received enough complaints to prompt them to remove their signs.

In my state a no weapons sign does not carry the force of law. It’s not until someone asks me to leave and do not that I can then be charged with trespassing, but again, only IF I don’t leave after being asked to leave. So, I pretty much ignore any signs or policies since they carry no weight by law and since they don’t respect my right to self defense, I don’t respect their wishes for me to be unarmed. It goes both ways. I don’t have an alternative to Costco where I live. Besides, concealed means concealed. No one is the wiser and they don’t know I’m carrying. Speaking of signs, I have yet to see a no guns sign on a private business since I started carrying (and therefore looking for them) in 2014. I also never see open carriers here, not counting my LGS.

Now, where it is actually illegal by state or federal law to carry, like a courthouse (or federal building), I will not carry because I can actually be charged with a crime in that case.

I have to want to go to the business first before I am going to take the time and talk to them about their misguided gun ban. If there is a choice of two places, one with a sign and one without, I will go to the one without. I am not going to waste my time talking to the other one.

While the constructive suggestions about speaking with management (the only ones to talk to, as regular employees just have no authority) are good, I’ll stick to Big Boy Rules: carry concealed, keep your mouth shut, and say and do nothing else. What they don’t see, they don’t know.

As long as I am not entering a government building, and/or somewhere with a metal detector, I carry. Always have, always will. Have been doing so for the past 35 years. Never been approached while I was off-duty, or now retired, by anyone, LEO or otherwise, and asked if I was carrying.

You make your own choice. If the “no guns allowed” signs bother you that much, take your money somewhere else.

Just ate at Jason’s Deli in Chandler, AZ. Their store is absolutely plastered with No Guns signs. When the manager on duty strolled by to ask about my meal, I asked him about the signs.

He turned out to be a pretty decent guy, apologetic about the signs and agreed they don’t make anyone safer. He even said he personally wouldn’t ask anyone to leave if they came in armed. It’s a corporate policy. Still, since those signs have the force of law, and effect of proclaiming discrimination, I do usually avoid eating there and will continue to do so as long as the signs are up

While I certainly understand the argument to not patronize businesses with no guns signs, I personally feel that eating one meal there lends me a bit of credibility when I lodge a complaint. After all, I’m not just some theoretical customer making idle threats. Besides, businesses I wouldn’t patronize anyway aren’t worth my time to defend, signs or no signs.

Step 1: Respect The Signage aka respect property – This, I hear concealed means concealed and it irks me so much. If you want people to respect your right to carry you need to respect their private property rights. I simply won’t go there if they don’t allow CC or OC, not as a way of getting back at them, but because I respect my right to carry and their right to say I can’t on their property.

Yep. The gunbuster sign is simply a nice way of saying, “Fnck off, we don’t want your kind in here!” Hey, I know where I’m not wanted. I won’t darken their door. They have every right to kiss my money goodbye.

Yep, feel free to try and convince them, but I follow their policies by simply not going there. My local movie theater is a small, three screen place, that might not have 3D, but the people are polite and guns are fine. They have a guy who checks overly large bags for cameras and candy, and I once heard him tell a lady she needs to get a holster to cover the trigger of the 38 in her bag.

If you want people to respect your right to carry you need to respect their private property rights.

Private property rights concern physical presence (i.e. trespass), and have nothing to do with, nor do they trump, self-defense rights. Private property rights do not gove the property owner the right or authority to disarm someone.

How so? If I own a business and I own or I am responsible for the property I should have every right to do what I want with said property. If someone doesn’t like it they have the option to not be a patron. If don’t want people to pogo stick on my property, I’m not restricting their right to travel.

How does a tool carried on my person affect your property in any way whatsoever? Can you tell me what type and color of underwear I wear, too?

A pogo stick can cause property damage, and can detrimentally impact business, by its use interfering with other customers.

As for “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”: first, I agree with you, but we no longer live in that world. The courts have magicked a “right of public accommodation” into existence. Second, even so, “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” deals with the person, not an inanimate object.

You’re preaching to the choir, if I owned a business I wouldn’t care if you carried an AR over your shoulder or an LCP in your pocket.
But when a business owner reads about an idiot shooting himself in the leg at a movie or an off duty cop pocket carrying nds and injures three in a Mcdonalds then he or she may start thinking its not a good idea to allow guns on the premises. I’d imagine that theatre lost some money and man hours. These events are as rare as being struck by lightning, but to Bob the business owner they may be terrifying.
I’m advocating gun owners respect peoples decisions and the sanctity of private business however wrong they may be and shop elsewhere.

But when a business owner reads about an idiot shooting himself in the leg at a movie or an off duty cop pocket carrying nds and injures three in a Mcdonalds then he or she may start thinking its not a good idea to allow guns on the premises.

By this logic, a business owner who reads about the violent crime rate of young, black males may start thinking its not a good idea to allow young, black males on the premises.

Both positions are wrong, for similar reasons.

I’m advocating gun owners respect peoples decisions and the sanctity of private business however wrong they may be and shop elsewhere.

“Private business” does not enjoy a condition of sanctity; human life, on the other hand, does. I am advocating that it is morally repugnant to disarm law-abiding people, anywhere, anytime, for any reason – because it renders the disarmed as defenseless against those who don’t care about laws, rules, or the sanctity of life.

“By this logic, a business owner who reads about the violent crime rate of young, black males may start thinking its not a good idea to allow young, black males on the premises.
Both positions are wrong, for similar reasons.”

I agree fully, its the wrong way of thinking, but the problem with this comparison is that someone doesn’t decide whether or not to be black, they can’t leave black in the car.

” I am advocating that it is morally repugnant to disarm law-abiding people,”

Again agreed, however to me it’s so morally repugnant that I don’t give them business. Also they aren’t disarming you, they merely don’t want your gun on their premises, the simple option is to not go on their premise.

I am completely against banning guns in publicly owned areas and most government buildings (Some like the visiting room of a prison is a bad idea.) But a private piece of property should be able to ban all left handers, because they own the property, its theirs. Sure banning left handed people is dumb, immature, and foolish, but it is their property to be idiots on.

…but the problem with this comparison is that someone doesn’t decide whether or not to be black, they can’t leave black in the car.

Neither can I leave back in the car my inherent right to life, and therefore to self-defense. But I would ask: why is the distinction relevant? In a world of “right of public accommodation”, why does it matter? Everyone enjoys the constitutionally protected equal protection under law, correct?

But a private piece of property should be able to ban all left handers, because they own the property, its theirs.

A place of business is, by choice of the property owner, no longer truly private – in the sense that the property owner has willingly opened the property to the public, for the purpose of commerce. (This is the kernel of truth underneath the specious “right of public accommodation” the Supremes invented.)

But, I’ll go back to your premise: can I leave my left-handedness back in the car?

Should a business owner be able to ban purple underwear? Should a business owner be able to ban Sikhs? Or turbans? Or Muslim? Or hijabs/burkas?

Why is an inanimate object, very likely concealed from anyone’s view and the presence of which is very likely unknown by anyone but the bearer, considered any differently?

I understand how the law defines it, and the accommodation necessary, I’m not arguing the law itself. I’m arguing the act of carriers violating people’s wishes. I do not think it is moral to disarm people, I do not think it is moral to deny people because of sexual orientation, race, gender, etc, however I do not think it is moral to disrespect a business owners request, whether or not I agree with it. I think actually works against our cause, and makes CCers seem like bullies with no respect.

“Should a business owner be able to ban purple underwear? Should a business owner be able to ban Sikhs? Or turbans? Or Muslim? Or hijabs/burkas?”

Like you pointed out with my foolish pogo stick comparison, none of those things can damage property, a gun can. Even if it’s rare, it is possible and it has happened. I don’t believe it’s a justifiable fear, or reason, when compared to real world statistics and events, but it is a fear some may have.

(I do enjoy the civility of this, I was arguing about civilian ownership of machine guns on Mother Jones, and while no one could tell me why they were more dangerous than regular guns, but they certainly could attack my intelligence, imply there was goat in my heritage, call me an ammosexual, etc.)

It’s just like bakeries being forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding, if they don’t want to do it, they shouldn’t have to. If I own a business and don’t want someone to carry a gun there, then they should respect that.

That’s what I do when I can. However, sometimes friends and family want to eat at such establishments. I don’t want to be the mean dad who won’t let his children eat at Chuck E Cheese with their friends.

I don’t care about no signs. Concealed is concealed. I carry everywhere except when having to walk through a metal detector like court or something like that. Nobody knows and nobody is supposed to know. I’ll tell a restaurant manager AFTER I’ve had my meal that I don’t like their policy, if I really want to eat there. If not, then I’ll move on. Is Buffalo Bills gonna pay up if i get assaulted in their establishment? No….I’ll take care of me and my family, you should also….

The auto parts store chain I work for doesn’t ban customers from carrying in the store, just it’s employees. The company employee handbook states than no employee is permitted to carry or posses a firearm on company property. Period. Doesn’t matter if it’s locked up in your vehicle or if you’re off the clock and not in uniform. If you have a firearm on you or in your vehicle, the punishment is not “up to and including termination”, it’s immediate termination.

I wish businesses would allow open or concealed carry. Practically, I suspect most businesses in NC would be more likely to welcome licensed concealed carriers who are unlikely to frighten other patrons or to misbehave, for that matter, than open carriers.

Logistically, there is not an easy way for them to ban only open carry. Try searching online for a gun-buster sign the prohibits open carry while allowing licensed concealed carriers. I found none in an hour of looking.

The conversation I would like to have with a business owner would be to point out the exceptionally law-abiding nature of CHP holders and to encourage replacement of their general gun buster sign with a sign that conveys that open carry is prohibited but licensed concealed carry is welcome. If I had a URL to point them to with such a sign ready to order, such a conversation would be much easier.

Part of the challenge is that we do not have a concise way of stating such a policy. It is tough to match “No firearms allowed” for clarity. A Beretta-buster image with text that says “Licensed Concealed Carry Only” is as close as I can come, but that is still confusing.